1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to backup techniques and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for providing a volume image backup of selected objects.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a typical computing environment, various objects (e.g., data files such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, structural designs and/or the like) are backed up to one or more storage devices (e.g., a tape drive, a hard disk drive and/or the like) on a regular basis. Generally, backups may be performed to protect the objects that store important, critical information. Regular backups prevent data loss and ensure uninterrupted productivity for the typical computing environment. As described further below, the various objects may be backed up and organized in a proprietary file format such as a volume image (backup) file format.
Volume image file formats are widely employed for full and incremental/delta backups due to a variety of reasons. For instance, disk-based full and/or incremental backups to volume image files are faster than file-by-file (i.e., brick) image files. Since each sector is read in sequential order, performing such a volume-based backup results in a reduction of hard disk seeks and file system query overhead. Furthermore, such incremental backups efficiently utilize changed data block tracking techniques to only copy data blocks that were modified since a previous backup instead of backing up an entire volume. Compared with file-by-file incremental backups, volume-based incremental backups are faster than backing up an entire file in cases where only a data block has changed. As another reason, volume image files are mountable and accessible as a volume (i.e., a drive letter) by various software programs. As yet another reason, the volume image files may be used as virtual disks by various virtual server applications. In addition, the volume image files permit random access of the data blocks; whereas, tape-based backup files only permit sequential access and therefore, lack enhanced functionality currently available with disk-based image backup files.
Generally, the volume image backup file is a block dump of a volume in a container format, such as .VHD, .VMDK, .V2I. Currently, a backup process is limited to an entire volume as opposed to selected objects (e.g., files and/or folders). For example, a user can only select the entire volume when creating the volume image backup file and cannot select individual files for a full and/or incremental backup. As such, each and every data block of a plurality of objects is copied to the volume image backup file. As a result, significant amounts of bandwidth and storage space are consumed unnecessarily. Furthermore, in a remote office scenario, the user may be interested in protecting only the critical data stored in the volume instead of the entire volume.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for providing a volume image backup of selected objects.